


your broken heart and the body that holds it

by janie_tangerine



Series: halloween 2k19 tumblr prompts [4]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (sorry it's not minor or implied so it had to be that), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Horror, Amputation, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathing/Washing, Body Horror, Brienne is the Best, Canon-Typical Violence, Cersei Fans Please Abstain, Dark Magic, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Ghosts, Halloween Prompts, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Frankenstein, Jaime Lannister Needs a Hug, Major Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Major Character Undeath, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Nor For Cersei Fans At All, Post-Episode: s07e07 The Dragon and the Wolf, Psychological Horror, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Content, Unethical Experimentation, Valonqar Prophecy, Weddings, danerys targaryen is a good bro, for the circumstances at least, guys PLEASE READ THE A-Ns XD, is2g the first third is the worst the rest is all hc going towards pseudofluff, please don't tell me I didn't warn, sandor clegane is a good bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: “Seven Hells,” that’s Clegane, has to be Clegane, “I’ll bet that’s the same kind of witchcraft that brought my fucking brother back to life, or whatever he is right now.”Suddenly, a couple of hands are on his face, and their skin is rough but the touch is delicate, and he opens his eyes to find that he’s lying on a bed with a fire going on nearby and Brienne is kneeling behind him and his head is on her thighs and she’s holding his head up and oh, he could stare up at her forever, he could, but he knows he has to tell them —“He’s right,” he croaks, hating how tired he sounds, “I said I would come here regardless and she had the Mountain kill me and then Qyburn brought me back. Whatever he did,” he says, breathing in, out, in, out —All of them look horrified. Snow, Tyrion, the man who looks like the resident maester given that he has some kind of tome in his hands, Clegane, Sansa Stark, and Brienne instead looks worried out of her mind —“Jaime,” Tyrion says, “why the fuck would she bring you back?”





	your broken heart and the body that holds it

**Author's Note:**

> *takes a deep breath* k guys, this was for the halloween prompts. OP wanted _like a Frankenstein au, where Cersei has Jaime killed to have Qyburn bring him back so he'll be loyal like the Mountain but it doesn't work, Jaime is still himself, but with superior strength etc, and he has a connection to the other side now so he sees like the ghost of like the tyrells, starks, etc who help him escape back to Brienne, Tyrion and the other ppl in the north to then help stop Cersei. J is traumatized cue comfort and recovery while with B_. I *think* it shows that it got out of hand but I wouldn't have suspected otherwise considering my issues with Frankenstein AUs. THAT SAID, this thing is... dark. I mean, at the end it gets fluff as usual but the beginning is a party of C. being herself and she has no single redeeming trait for the entire of this fic, so... I warned you. It's exactly what it says on the tin XD
> 
> that said: everything belongs to GRRM and the likes, I own nothing, the title is from the gaslight anthem WE'RE BACK AT CANNIBALIZING BRIAN FALLON and happy halloween everyone see you with hopefully a couple more entries for today <3

“Give the order then,” Jaime says, and maybe a small, _small_ part of him hopes that she won’t.

He will curse it, not long from now. Maybe if he hadn’t said so, he’d have gained time and he could have run.

But — but he doesn’t want to believe that the woman he loved is gone for good as much as he’s been shown that over and over since he came back from the Riverlands, if she was even there in the first place, and still, and still, she had her claws so deep into him that he had to give her that last chance, he _had_ to —

Cersei shakes her head.

“I had imagined,” she says, staring at him in the eyes, and then, “_do it_,” she says, and a moment later he sees steel come out of his chest, and blood is filling his mouth, bitter and red and he’s gorging on it, he’s vomiting it out of his lips, and he’s looking at Cersei’s eyes as she smiles and she comes closer closer _closer_, her hand reaching out and cupping his face, and he wants to move back, he wants to recoil from the touch but he can’t move, he can’t _move_, and he can’t speak —

“Don’t worry,” she says, and she’d have sounded sweet to him years ago, but _now_, now it sounds like screeching crows, “I couldn’t ever kill you _for real_.”

He doesn’t have time to think about what she could mean.

He sees only darkness a moment later.

—

He sees gray.

He thinks it’s a ceiling.

Maybe.

Something touches his mouth.

It’s all dark.

—

“Could it be done?”

_That’s Cersei. Is that Cersei? He thinks it’s Cersei. But how?_

“Oh, I don’t see why not. It did work for the Mountain, after all.”

_It’s a man. He doesn’t know who. Or maybe he did._

“Then I trust you to do the job.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

—

There’s pain everywhere. It’s in his entire body, it’s in his throat, it’s in his _teeth_, it’s in his legs, but his arm —

_His right arm_ —

He thinks he screams.

Maybe. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anymore, he _doesn’t, _he _doesn’t_ —

—

There’s liquid spilling inside his mouth, past his lips, in his throat, and once it would have tasted like milk of the poppy, but now it tastes like nothing, it makes him want to retch, and there’s a hand on his forehead —

“Drink it,” it says, and once he’d have said yes to anything that voice asked of him but now he wants to retch, he doesn’t want it, he doesn’t, and then another hand is wrapped around his right, wait, his _right_, he doesn’t — it doesn’t —

_**Drink**_, that voice commands again, and he can’t not even if he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t, he _doesn’t_ —

He swallows. He loses consciousness again, but he feels those fingers running through his hair, telling him that he’ll come back _better_ than he was, _so much better, Jaime, so much_, and he can only think, _no_, but then he’s gone again.

—

“How long will it take?”

“It should not be long, Your Grace,” Qyburn says, wait, _the name was Qyburn_, and Jaime —

Jaime feels like he _should_ be opening his eyes. But he doesn’t. Not just yet.

“It was the first time I attempted such an experiment,” Qyburn proceeds. “But it should have worked to our satisfaction. The hand responds, his vitals are… the same as our previous attempt.” He stops, clears his throat. “The moment he wakes up, he should be exactly what you asked for.”

“I imagine no more _riding North_ nonsense.”

“Of course not.”

_I intend to honor that pledge_, Jaime had said. He remembers _that_.

Fuck.

_Fuck_, what has Cersei done to him, he had died, the Mountain killed him, _what_ —

“Admittedly, he _might_ not be able to talk, that is a possible side effect that has always happened every other time I attempted such a thing, but other than that —”

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Cersei says, “he never had anything interesting to say for himself, anyhow. Better that he can’t.”

_What_ —

Jaime opens his eyes. Everything is sluggish. His vision is blurry, even if he can actually see — he’s somewhere in the dark cells, isn’t he, and then —

“Oh, there he is.”

That was Qyburn.

“You can see for yourself,” he presses, and then Cersei speaks —

“Sit up,” she says, and —

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t _care_ to. But he has a feeling nothing good will happen should he not do it, and so he tries, and — it’s remarkably easy. Even if everything is sluggish and he feels _tired_, and what did she do, he should be dead, he should be _dead_, what —

He looks down at his own chest.

There’s a scar right over his heart. Where the Mountain’s sword had struck.

Fuck.

He should be dead.

He should be _dead_.

Then he sees that —

That he actually _has a right hand again_. It’s neatly stitched to his wrist. It’s not his. It’s _someone else’s_ — the fingers are wrong, the skin tone is wrong, it feels wrong, and he wants to scream, he _wants_ to, but when he opens his mouth no sound comes out even if he feels like he _should_ scream, and then —

“Look at me,” Cersei says, and Jaime would like to resolutely stare down at his damned hand that feels _wrong_, but she sounds the way she did — the way she did when she said she’d kill him if she dared cross her again, when she had her arms around him and he thought _I have no way out_, and so he raises his eyes and —

His sister is there. She’s looking at him in what looks like smug satisfaction.

She has never seemed uglier.

And behind her, _he can see Loras Tyrell_.

What the —

He stares at him, because he can’t look at Cersei, not _now_, but —

“Play dumb,” Tyrell says, and no one seems to have heard him. “_Just fucking do it, Lannister_,” he says, and so Jaime looks at her again trying to not change his expression at all.

Cersei’s hand moves to his cheek. He doesn’t move. She grabs at his hair, tugs it hard enough to hurt, and oh, it _does_ hurt, a lot, but he doesn’t move. Somehow, it’s easier to bear pain now. She smiles again.

“Kiss me,” she says, moving closer, and he does, feeling like he wants to die all over again — she’s wrong, she tastes wrong, he doesn’t want it, gods he doesn’t want _any_ of it, but when he moves away she looks ecstatic.

“Do you still want to go North?”

_Yes, yes, yes_, he wants to answer.

He says nothing and just stares at her.

“Ser Gregor, his sword,” Cersei says.

A moment later, the Mountain, who had Widow’s Wail in his hand, throws it his way. Immediately, he raises his arm and catches it, with the right hand, and — it feels lighter. Fuck.

_Fuck._ What has happened to him, _what_ —

“Put it down,” Cersei says, and Jaime does, even if he feels like gutting _all_ of them, but Tyrell is shaking his head and telling him to fucking play dumb, and so he does.

Cersei is smiling wide enough it has to hurt. “You, my lord,” she tells Qyburn, “have done me a _great_ service. He really is perfect, now.”

“My pleasure, Your Grace,” Qyburn bows.

And _then_ it hits Jaime in the face.

Oh.

_This is what she wanted from him_.

Not —

Not _him_, not —

She just wanted him to — to do what _she_ wanted, to —

“Jaime?” She asks. “Do follow me to my rooms.”

“Do it,” Tyrell says, “we’ll talk to you later.”

_We_?

Jaime says nothing, doesn’t even nod.

He climbs down from the cot he was lying on.

Then he follows her, the way he always has, and he doesn’t want to, _he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to —_

_—_

Hours later, he’s sitting on a bench in one of the dark cells. He’s wearing nondescript clothing that Qyburn put on him and he had wanted to crush his head every single time that bastard touched him, even if it was nowhere as bad as —

As —

He shakes his head.

He’s not going to think about lying down on Cersei’s bed, about what she — what she had him do, what she did to _him_ while he was staring up at her and doing whatever she said while _Margaery_ Tyrell kept on watching them and told him to pretend pretend _pretend_ —

He stands up, grabs one of the bars of his cell, wraps a hand around it, twists —

It moves.

It felt like pulling on a door.

He puts a hand on his heart.

He feels a faint beat, once, and then a long time passes before there’s another.

Gods, _gods_, what have they done, what —

“Oh, finally,” Loras Tyrell says, appearing in the room’s corner, and Jaime gasps, and —

“What in the Seven Hells is going on?” He rasps, and oh, _oh_, he can speak then, _good_, he was starting to worry.

“Sorry to inform you,” the man goes on, “but your sister has had you killed. Same as us all. And then she brought you back to life, somehow.”

“All of you?”

Tyrell shrugs.

A moment later, his sister appears next to him, then Olenna Tyrell, and _Ned Stark_ next to them, and he’s looking at him as if he’s sorry for him, and then _his wife and his son_ show up next to him looking like they’re both about to cry, and it makes no sense, and then he looks outside the cell and there is Lancel, _shit_, Lancel, _Sansa Stark’s direwolf_ curled in a corner, and more people he can’t make sense of, and —

“Seems like being like _that_ means you can see us,” Loras goes on.

“Do — do you know what she has in plans?” Jaime asks, even if he thinks he knows the answer.

Catelyn Stark’s blue eyes are _sad_ as she meets his. “To use you the same way she uses the Mountain,” she says. “Or so she told Qyburn. Except, well. Also in other ways.”

_No, no, no,_ Jaime thinks.

“I wanted to go North,” he whispers, his voice breaking.

“We know,” Robb Stark says. “We were here all along. We are _there_, too, but — never mind that.” He sounds like he _gets_ it.

“I _did_ tell you that woman would have been your undoing,” Olenna tuts, and Jaime wishes he could tell her to fuck off —

“I’m so sorry,” he hears from behind him, and when he turns he sees Myrcella with her face filled with tears, Tommen holding her hand, and he’s openly crying, and Jaime _wants_ to but tears don’t come, he feels like he can’t anymore and he hates this he _hates_ this —

He falls to his knees, his right hand that feels _wrong_ reaching for the both of them.

It passes right through Myrcella’s arm. It feels cold.

“Do you still want to go North?” Tommen asks, wiping at his eyes.

“What if I do?” Jaime blurts, not daring thinking he _could_, but — but at least whatever he is now he could help out, he could be worth _something,_ and maybe — Tyrion wouldn’t hate him, he thinks, and Brienne —

Oh, _Brienne_ —

He doesn’t even dare thinking about how she told him to fuck loyalty and how she reminded him that he could do the right thing and he didn’t have to follow his sister blindly, how she seemed to trust him to do the right thing always, the one person who ever _did_ at all times that wasn’t his brother, because then he’ll think about how he’s never dared admit to himself that he’s dreamed of her when it should only have been his sister, how he yearns to see her again —

“We can help you,” Robb Stark says at once.

Jaime turns to him. “You — you could?”

“We’ve been in this castle long enough,” Margaery shrugs. “We know how to get out of it.”

“And you want to do that without a bloody _plan_?”

What the —

The last thing Jaime had expected was _Robert_ to show up next to Ned Stark and look at him with _pity._

“He’s right,” Stark says. “We’ll consult,” he says, “and find you a way out in a few days at most. For now, just —”

“Play dumb?” He snorts, looking at Loras. Loras smiles back apologetically.

“I’m sorry. But from what we gathered, it’s the best way.”

_Can’t be too hard. I’m the stupidest Lannister after all, am I not_?

Fine. He’ll wait.

A few days. Can’t be too long.

—

Three days later, he feels like murdering the entire damned castle.

Cersei ordered him to her bed morning _and_ evening. When she hasn’t, she has him execute people Jaime doesn’t even know the names of, same as Ilyn Payne used to do, except that she seems to take a certain perverse satisfaction in ordering _him_ to do it when she knows he would have protested, if —

If —

_If_ —

Whenever he has to do it, he goes away inside, thinks of Brienne’s face when she said _this goes beyond families_, when she called him _ser_ for the first time, when she took Oathkeeper from him, when she held him in the bath, when he told her his name was Jaime and she never called him anything else —

And every morning, before he lies down on the bed, she has him drink whatever it was that Qyburn gave him _before_ — he thought it was milk of the poppy but it’s _not_, it’s something similar but different, and every time he gulps it down the room turns blurry and he feels sick, but he has no idea of what should be the intended effect.

Not whatever is happening to him when he drinks it, anyway.

—

The third day, he hears them talking in the hallway near his cell.

“So, is that drink working?” Qyburn asks.

“Oh, it _is_,” Cersei says, sounding almost giddy, for her standards. “How long did you say he should take it before he might not need any more?”

“I would say a moon, Your Grace. Better be sure. We don’t want to risk anything.”

Jaime has this suspicion that whatever he’s drinking should make sure he’ll do what she want for good.

He feels like throwing up.

He remembers how Brienne caught him in that bath so long ago, while the last time Cersei touched him —

He breathes in. Out. In. Out.

His right hand feels so wrong he’d tear it out if he could.

He won’t.

He _won’t_.

He might need it.

—

“Come on,” Loras says that night, rousing him from a sort of slumber that wasn’t really sleep. “We figured it out.”

Jaime immediately rises from the bed. He looks at Loras, who bites down on his lip before taking a step back. “Break the lock, get out and go right. My sister will take it from there.”

“Thank you,” Jaime tells him, and Loras shakes his head before disappearing.

He breaks the lock. It takes nothing. Then he goes right.

—

Margaery Tyrell and her grandmother are waiting at the end of it. They say nothing as they lead him underneath the keep — Jaime supposes this used to be Varys’s reign, once upon a time. They stop in front of a ladder that goes up to a trapdoor.

“Get out of there,” Olenna says, “someone else will be there. Be quiet. And _don’t_ kill anyone on your way out. You want to leave this city, not for someone to catch you.”

Jaime nods and gets up, opening the trapdoor.

He’s in what seems like a Kingsguard room, but it’s empty.

“It was Sandor Clegane’s,” Myrcella says helpfully from the corner. Tommen is nearby, looking at him with such _sad_ eyes —

“There should be some clothes in the wardrobe and maybe a sword. Take them.”

Jaime nods, unable to speak, and finds a white cloak, white breeches and doublet, the usual uniform — no armor, of course, but that went unsaid. He puts them on, takes a new pair of boots, and even if they’re all more than a bit large on him, at least they’re clean. He puts on the white cloak, finds the sword and takes it with the right hand that doesn’t belong to him and feels _so wrong_ he could vomit, and he thinks of the people he had to kill with it —

Shit, shit, _shit_ —

He fastens it around his waist, then locks the closet.

“Good,” Tommen says, nodding. “Now get out. Go left. Try to be silent. Robb should be out there.”

“Thank you,” Jaime whispers. “I — I’m sorry.”

“We know,” Myrcella smiles, sadly, and he runs out of the room before he does something stupid.

—

Robb Stark is at the end of the hallway. “Come on,” he says, “we need to go back underground. There’s that secret way to the sea. There won’t be a boat, but if we understood Qyburn right, you could swim without needing to breathe for a long time. Do it until you’re outside the city walls at the Iron Gate, you’ll find my parents.”

“The sword won’t hold me back?”

“No,” Robb says. “It shouldn’t be a problem. When you go North, pass my brothers my regards, will you?”

Jaime nods, feeling like his throat is too constricted to talk. “I — I will.”

“Good.” He says nothing more until they reach the bay, and Jaime thanks him before swimming in the direction he said.

It’s true. He can barely feel the sword’s weight. And he barely needs to breathe. By the time he’s at the Iron Gate, he feels like he has taken a pleasant walk, not like he swam with a sword at his hip.

Both Ned and Catelyn Stark are there, next to a horse.

“How —”

They look at each other. “Being a ghost means _men_ cannot see you,” Ned says, “not that _animals_ can’t.”

“Also,” Catelyn goes on, “Qyburn _did_ explain Cersei everything. You probably — wouldn’t want to know, but you don’t _have_ to sleep unless you want to, and you would need far less than an average person, and you would do with that sort of slumbering you had fallen into before. Also, you won’t need to eat if you don’t want to.”

_What has she done to him_ —

“Lannister,” Ned says, “I — I need to apologize, before you leave.”

“_What_?”

“I misjudged you, a long time ago. And you want to do the right thing now. I’m sorry I ever did.”

“Send Brienne my regards,” Catelyn says, _knowingly_ — “And don’t worry, she won’t hate you for _that_.”

“How did you know?” He rasps.

“You talked. While you slumbered.” She seems _understanding_. “And I have followed her enough to know she does care for you. Now go, we held you too long.”

Jaime nods at the both of them, laughing internally knowing that _Ned and Catelyn Stark_ were eventually more merciful for him than Cersei ever was, and rides out of King’s Landing.

He needs to go North.

He _needs_ to be away from here.

—

They didn’t lie.

He rides for four days straight and only stops when the horse looks about to crash and burn under him. When he rests, he barely sleeps, merely closing his eyes and waking up as he remembers Cersei’s hands on him and that disgusting milk she poured into him and how happy she looked thinking that he had turned into some kind of glorified murder doll at her disposal, and he tries to think of how Brienne used to look at him, as if he could have a shred of honor to his name, as if, _as if_ —

His right hand is all _wrong_, and he didn’t bring any gloves, and he has to look at fingers that aren’t his and that shouldn’t bend when he wants them to, and he doesn’t know to whom it belonged, he doesn’t want to, but it’s not his it’s not _his_ it’s not his _it’s not his_ —

—

Just past Moat Caitlin, the horse has to rest. He takes his sword out with the left hand. His grip doesn’t falter.

He hits the bark of the tree with it.

His grip doesn’t falter, either.

_Fuck_.

Whatever they did, it seems like he can use it proficiently with both hands now.

It’s — nothing he’d have traded his fucking _life_ with, but —

At least that.

_Maybe like this they will let me live_, he thinks, wishing he could cry.

—

He sees Winterfell some eight days after he left King’s Landing.

He doesn’t know how to even attempt to explain the situation, so he hides his right side under the cloak, shows up at the gates and tells the guards that he needs to talk to either Tyrion Lannister or Brienne of Tarth, and when they look at him they seem scared out of their mind before scampering to find either of them.

He stays at the gate, and the cold doesn’t bother him, he’s felt cold for days now —

And then the both of them appear in the yard, and Tyrion’s face goes ghastly pale, so _obviously_ something has to be wrong even if they don’t know, and then Brienne is rushing towards him and he can’t hold the cloak anymore and lets it fall, and when she sees the hand she stops dead in her tracks, right in front of him —

“Jaime?” She asks, sounding like she can’t believe it.

“Cersei won’t send any soldiers,” he blurts, and then — “Gods, _please_, help me,” he says, and his legs falter for the first time since he woke up again and Brienne’s caught him, so gently, so _gently_ —

—

“Gods, _gods_, what — this isn’t — I can’t —”

“Sam, take a breath and _tell us what’s wrong_,” a voice that sound like Jon Snow’s says.

“_Everything_ is wrong because by all accounts he should be dead! You see that wound? Someone put a longsword through his heart, Jon, and — and he can use the right hand, but it’s not _his_, you can see it, can’t you?”

“Good gods,” Snow says, and Jaime wishes he could open his eyes, but he’s so tired, so _tired_ —

“And his heartbeat is — slow. It could be the same as an animal in hibernation, pretty much, I _think_, but it’s not — _who _did that?”

“I fear it was Qyburn,” Tyrion says, and wait, Tyrion is here, _he’s here_ —

“Seven Hells,” that’s Clegane, _has to be Clegane_, “I’ll bet that’s the same kind of witchcraft that brought my fucking brother back to life, or whatever he is right now.”

Suddenly, a couple of hands are on his face, and their skin is rough but the touch is delicate, and he opens his eyes to find that he’s lying on a bed with a fire going on nearby and Brienne is kneeling behind him and his head is on her thighs and she’s holding his head up and _oh_, he could stare up at her forever, he _could_, but he knows he has to tell them —

“He’s right,” he croaks, hating how tired he sounds, “I said I would come here regardless and she had the Mountain kill me and then Qyburn brought me back. Whatever he did,” he says, breathing in, out, in, out —

All of them look horrified. Snow, Tyrion, the man who looks like the resident maester given that he has some kind of tome in his hands, Clegane, Sansa Stark, and Brienne instead looks worried out of her mind —

“Jaime,” Tyrion says, “_why_ the fuck would she bring you back?”

He laughs. “Because she wanted me to do the same things his brother is currently doing on her bidding,” he says, hoping that it doesn’t make him vomit for real, but he thinks he’s beyond that, “but it went wrong and I ran and _gods please someone cut off this fucking hand_,” he blurts, and he can hear Brienne gasping and everyone else in the room following.

“What —” Brienne starts, “but —”

“It’s not _mine_,” he pleads, “I can’t stand it anymore, I _can’t_, and whatever happened to me now I can fight with the left as well as I could with the right and _I don’t want it_ and she put it on me and she made me — _please_ just do it, I can’t —” He starts, and now that he’s said it he can’t stop and his fingers are shaking so hard and _he_ is shaking so hard that the bed is trembling, and Brienne’s holding his chest to hers and telling him to please calm down but he _can’t_ —

“Bugger this,” Clegane says, “Tarly, find me some fucking wine and a good dagger. I’ll do it if she keeps him still.”

“Maybe we should reconsider for a moment —” Tarly starts.

“_Please take it off_,” Jaime begs again, he’s not above that right now, and —

“Lannister,” Jon asks his brother, “_you_ are his brother. What do you say?”

Tyrion stares at the both of them for a moment and Jaime looks at him and hopes that he gets it, _please let him get it_ —

“Give Clegane the damned knife,” Tyrion says. “I’m staying for it.”

He thinks he’s crying.

It’s relief.

—

They bring Sandor the knife and wine. Everyone but him, Tyrion and Brienne stays in the room. Brienne is holding on to him so tight it would be painful if he could still feel pain. Sandor has a hand on his forearm, pressing it down on what feels like a block of stone. He’s most likely noticing the stitches holding the fake hand to his stump.

“Right,” Sandor says, “Tarly said that somehow it _can’t_ be detached any other way. I’m going to --”

“Just fucking do it already,” Jaime grits his teeth.

Sandor nods. Jaime closes his eyes. Brienne is whispering something in his ear, but he can barely distinguish it.

The knife goes down.

He doesn’t even _feel_ it.

—

Later, his right wrist is bandaged. Tarly clears his throat when he’s done, and says that the flesh wasn’t bleeding out and that there was no chance it’d rot or get infected.

“That’s because it’s dead, isn’t it,” Jaime had said, and Tarly had shrugged and answered that it looked like it.

Not that he had expected any different answer.

Snow had said he’d go talk to Daenerys Targaryen and see to get him off the hook, everyone else but Brienne and Tyrion went with him, and now it’s just the three of them with Jaime lying on her bed, Brienne still holding his left hand, and he wants to throw up all over again, but at least he’s — himself. Sort of. He doesn’t have _anyone else_’s hand on his damned wrist.

“Seven Hells,” Tyrion said, “I — I never thought she could — Jaime, _what the —_”

“I don’t know,” he says, feeling hollowed out. “I don’t know, and I hate this, and I’m not — I just wanted to keep my word, for once,” he says, feeling like he _could_ cry even if tears don’t come to him anymore. Or so it seems.

“How are you feeling?” Brienne asks, nodding at his wrist.

“Fine,” he says, and it’s true. He barely feels pain. God, _what has he become_?

Tyrion puts a hand on his wrist, the maimed one, and he _almost_ does sob, but then someone knocks at the door.

“The Queen wants to see you,” Jon says, and for a moment he freezes and then he realizes it’s Daenerys Targaryen.

Well, _shit_.

He stands up.

“I’ll be there,” he says, and Brienne grabs his arm.

“I’m not letting her do anything to you,” she says, sounding convinced of it, so very much, and he just nods because he doesn’t have the strength to do much else.

—

Thankfully, Tarly and Snow already informed her of what happened, so he doesn’t have to say all of it.

When she tells him to take off his shirt, he feels like throwing up because it feels like it did for those few days when Cersei commanded him around, but he does it nonetheless. She breathes in sharply, nodding as she takes in the fact that there is no way he might have survived _that_ wound.

“If your sister didn’t want to help us, why were you going to ride up here?”

“I wanted to keep my word. Someone made me remember that this — this goes beyond loyalties.” He glances at Brienne. Then he looks up at her. “She didn’t like it.”

“And what are your feelings towards your sister now?” She asks, and he’s almost glad she’s not asking him about fucking Aerys.

“I want to strangle her myself,” he says, and thing is, he even _means_ it.

“That sounds very convincing,” Daenerys Targaryen goes on, “but from what I heard, Ser Clegane’s brother, who came… before you, so to speak, is absolutely obedient to her. Isn’t he?”

Jaime feels like his legs won’t hold up any longer. His left hand is shaking. He tries to not make it show. “Yes.”

“And from what you told _them_, she wanted you to be the same.”

“Yes.” It feels hard to say the words now. He has to force himself to speak, and his throat is closing up —

“So how do I know you’re not doing her bidding? _That_,” she says, nodding to the missing hand, “could have been a ruse, if you can fight with the left as well.”

He feels like throwing up for real. _She said it would be better if I didn’t even talk, how can you think that I’m doing her bidding, how_ —

“I know he wouldn’t,” Brienne says, stepping forward. Wait, what — “Your Grace,” she goes on, “I _know_ him. He lost that hand to — to save me from being raped, the first time around. He armored me and gave me this sword to find Lady Sansa because we swore that to her mother. He — I know he has honor, and he showed it to me time and time again. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want it. And he wouldn’t be dead, if he really wanted to do her bidding.”

Jaime thinks he could kiss her for that, the way he had wanted for a long time, and then he realizes that —

If he kneels for Daenerys Targaryen he _will_ be at her beck and call. And he — he — he knows he’s a damned killing machine now, whether he wants it or not, and being at the beck and call of Aerys Targaryen’s daughter _just after_ Cersei wanted to —

He can’t.

He can’t do that, he can’t do that, but then he sees Brienne staring at Daenerys like she _will_ go down with him if she has to, and —

Oh.

_Oh_.

“Your Grace,” he says, “I think I know how to prove you that I am not doing her bidding.”

“How?” She asks, and —

He puts a hand on Brienne’s arm. “My lady,” he says, “could you turn?”

She does, obviously about to ask _what’s going on_, and then he lets himself smile as he unsheathes his sword and drops to one knee in front of her.

“I offer my services to Lady Brienne of Tarth,” he says, and he pinpoints the moment her eyes go wide and she thinks of stopping him, but he shakes his head and mouths _let me_, and then, “I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the Old Gods and the New,” he finishes, and gods it feels so _liberating_, he could cry, and then he sees that her eyes are wet as she leans down and puts a hand on his shoulder —

“And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth, and meat and mead at my table. And I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear it by the Old Gods and the New. Arise,” she says, gently, and he just feels so goddamned _relieved_ that she accepted, because he knows _she_ won’t ask anything of him he would hate and now he doesn’t have to kneel to anyone else, and he can see that Daenerys understood what he aimed to do, because after counseling for a moment with both Jon and Sansa she agrees that if Brienne vouches for him and takes responsibility for him then it’s good enough for them all.

“Let’s see what happens when the Others come,” she says. “If you don’t displease me, I might leave your sister to you.”

“Your Grace is very merciful,” he says, and he doesn’t know if he means it or not, but she takes it for good, so — at least this is done.

And now at least he can be near Brienne without anyone protesting it.

He just wishes he hadn’t had to _die_ for it.

—

Back in her room, she closes the door behind them and takes a good look at him.

Then —

“Tell me,” she says.

“What? I fear you should be a tad more specific, my lady.”

“_Everything_,” she says, grabbing his arm and sitting him on the bed, moving next to him. “I want to know exactly what in the Seven Hells she did to you.” She stares at him with those wide blue eyes as her hand clutches his left, and before he knows it he’s told her, how she had the Mountain kill him, how _she_ was the last person he thought of as he was dying, how he woke up on that table, how he heard them talking, how she said that he was _perfect_ like — like _that_, how she made him kill people he didn’t want to, and he hadn’t wanted to tell her about the rest, too, but the way she’s looking at him as she puts a hand on the back of his neck as if he’s not _dead_ makes him tell her that, too, because after all she _knows_, doesn’t she, and by the time he’s at the end of the tale her face is ashen pale and her lips are tightened, pressed together —

“I —,” he blurts, “Qyburn, he said that maybe — there was the chance I would never talk again because it was a supposed side effect and — she said that it was better like that. I can’t — I’d have never wanted her to — to _not_ — gods, when she said I was the stupidest of them all she was right, wasn’t she —”

“I think,” she says, very slowly, “that if it’s all the same to you, if Daenerys Targaryen doesn’t care for personally killing your sister, _I_ might do that before you could.”

At _that_, his previous trail of thought stops and he looks back up at her, and — fuck. He had thought he had seen her angry.

Now she looks _furious_.

He’s just glad it’s not directed at _him_.

“What?” He whispers, feeling like his words _will_ fail him for good.

“I cannot — I cannot conceive that anyone would do _this_ to someone they’re supposed to love,” she says, and gods she _sounds_ like she would kill his sister on sight, “and — what you said — I cannot — how do you think someone is _perfect_ for doing your bidding without talking back?” She moves a hand to the side of his face again, and it feels so light, so gentle in comparison to Cersei, he —

“Gods,” she whispers, “as if you weren’t even _before_ —” And then she stops talking, but it’s useless because he’s heard her, and —

“What did you just say?” He says, barely audible, and she has to hear that he’s pleading, because then she smiles a bit, moves a hand to his waist —

“Ser,” —

“_Jaime_,” he corrects her, “please, I can’t —”

“_Jaime_,” she says, “I _know_ you. I think I damn well do. I have seen that you’re a good man, I can see that it was everything you wanted to be, I know you gave up your reputation to save half a million people, considering the things your brother says about you it’s pretty damn obvious that you always have been, and — before you arrived, Bran Stark _did_ tell everyone what happened in Winterfell, and then said that it would be clear that it had to happen and that you pushed him because you thought your sister wanted it while the first instinct you had was _saving_ him, so we shouldn’t mention that accident. And while it might be an acquired taste, I do actually enjoy your frankly questionable sense of humor,” she says, “and I would hate it to not hear your voice for the rest of my life. You also might have been not so coincidentally the only man I’ve ever met who actually _did_ respect me. I couldn’t — the mere _idea_ that anyone would like you better silent makes me blood boil, I think.”

He doesn’t think she’s ever talked _to_ him at once this much.

“That doesn’t make me —”

“To _me_,” she half-smiles, “you have been _perfect_ since you risked your life to save mine without even a weapon, and as your liege lady, this is the only thing on which I won’t hear you trying to tell me I’m wrong. Clear?”

She’s smiling as she says it, though, and he nods, says, “All right, clear,” and then his voice breaks on the last word and he knows he’s crying and he had thought he _couldn’t_ anymore but now he _is_ and his face feels wet and his chest is spasming and a moment later she’s holding him close without even flinching even if _like this_ he could snap her neck, but he can’t even think about that _now_ —

“Please,” he sobs, “please, I know you’ll never ask anything wrong of me but after this is over, if we live —”

“What?” She presses, her hand going to his hair.

“Please let me stay with you, I can’t — I can’t be with anyone else, I can’t pledge myself to anyone else because I know _you_ would never take advantage, I couldn’t —”

“I’ll have you,” she says at once, her mouth pressing against the side of his head, and maybe he cries harder at that — “I’ll have you. Now, after, whenever. We are going to figure this out. We _are_.”

He decides to believe her.

It can’t do any harm, after all.

—

The dead come not long later.

It’s clear in the span of not very long that _he_ can handle more than anyone else at once — he manages ten at some point, but he doesn’t need to watch his back because they can’t fucking kill him, and now he can crush the heads of any of them just grabbing them by the neck if he wants to, and by the time Jon Snow’s sword has turned bright white and he’s killed the Night King, he’s saved the hide of anyone fighting near him at least ten times, he doesn’t feel tired at all, his grip around the sword is strong and he’s covered in blood and gore and dead meat and he feels none of it.

None.

Of.

It.

He stands still as the remaining Others fall down. He doesn’t move an inch while everyone else breathes in relief, and then Brienne puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You need a bath. _I_ need a bath. Everyone else can worry about clean-up. Come on, there are springs under the castle.”

He nods, follows her, because he always will and right now he can barely even _think_.

—

She has to take his bloodied clothes off him when they get there after she drops by her room to grab a couple of changes, because he just — can’t move. He lets her push him gently into the water and starts going back to himself when finally he feels the shock of it against his cold skin, and at that point he starts to shake all over because gods, _gods_, he hadn’t realized but —

“What’s wrong?” She asks, dropping next to him, and he’s glad she put a hand around his shoulders because he feels like fainting —

“_That_ was what she wanted me to do,” he whispers, “just — not against dead people. They talked about it, I think. God, that — that thing he said I should drink, I think it was supposed to make sure that if I got the instinct to say no it’d go away, fuck, _fuck_, I — Brienne, I _can’t_.”

“You can’t what,” she says, holding him closer and gods she’s so, so _warm_ —

“I could barely feel myself. And those were… undead. Who cares if they _died already_. But — if now we march South — I can’t do that, I can’t kill living people just like _that_, we’d probably lose an advantage but I can’t — I don’t want to do that, please I —”

“That’s fine,” she says, shaking her head, and a moment later she’s forgotten property completely and she has her arms around him, and he can’t believe she doesn’t flinch at his chest scar or at his cold skin or at his barely beating heart as she runs a hand through his hair and another along his back, “that’s _fine_, you don’t have to. We can stay here if you want to. We don’t _have_ to go.”

He shakes his head. “I — I don’t think I can _not_ go. I need — I need to see it happen. But I can’t be a part of it. Please don’t —”

“Jaime, if the queen personally asks me to have you fight in the south, I’m telling her it’s happening over my dead body. And she might want _me_ to fight. You’re not doing anything you _don’t_ want. I said I wouldn’t ask it of you, didn’t I?”

“I forced it out of you,” he sighs, calming down, wishing he didn’t feel like _this_, like his entire self felt so completely, wholly _wrong_, “but thank you nonetheless.”

“It was my honor,” she says, and he can’t believe she said _that_, but then she says he’s still covered in blood and he should get clean and then she grabs a bar of soap and proceeds to wash it off him, and he relishes in how slow and careful and delicate she is as she runs her hand along his skin or through his hair as she washes it, and by the time they’re out of the water and she’s cleaned him off and got him into her clothes, he feels better. A _lot_ better.

That is, until he realizes something.

“Shit,” he says, “I just ruined your life, didn’t I?”

“… How so?” She replies, and he shakes his head, and —

“I don’t know if you planned on staying here forever,” he says, “but if you wanted to inherit your fair island, I doubt any man would come forward if he knew _I_ was part of — of it.” He shakes his head. “Maybe you _should_ dismiss me after —”

“I said I would have you _always_,” she shakes her head. “And — Jaime, I don’t think you understood something.”

“… What?”

“That I wouldn’t search for a man to come forward because there’s only one man I’ve ever wanted in my life, and it would be surprising if _you_ were a problem in this case.”

“… How?”

She looks at him, as if she’s pondering whether she can do whatever she’s thinking or _not_ —

And then she leans forward, presses her lips to his, softly but with _intent_, and Jaime hadn’t expected it, he _hadn’t_, and hells does this mean _he_ is her first kiss and he is when he’s _dead_ and his lips are cold and —

“Like _that_,” she says as she moves back, and his left hand moves of its own accord, clutching her wrist as her palm still cups his face, and he can’t believe she’s looking at him like she doesn’t _mind_, like nothing’s changed, like —

“You can’t mean it,” he whispers, barely recognizing his own voice — he hadn’t pleaded like that in years, since long before he knew her, since before _Aerys_ —

“I do,” she says, with the absolute sureness of someone who is not lying at all, and he just — he can’t _not_, he has to, and so he moves on his toes and kisses her again and oh she’s warm and her lips are soft and her mouth yields against him without a moment of hesitation and he wants her to kiss him until he forgets anything else and he tells her and she says it’s all right and they can do that —

Later, he’s on her bed and she’s kissing him again saying that it’s all they have to do for now, it’s all right, and so he stops thinking about anything else that’s not her mouth and her hands carding through his hair and oh, _oh_, if only this was the way it was supposed to be, but —

But he’ll take this.

He’ll take anything she gives him.

Anything.

—

“I’m sorry,” he tells her when it’s too dark outside to see anything.

“For what?” She asks, her voice warming the back of his neck.

“You deserved — sometimes I let myself think —”

He stops, starts again. “That I would — do this properly. I dreamed of it while I was still — when I realized that Cersei wasn’t — even _before_, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I thought I would come up to you and tell you the truth and bring you flowers and ask you if you would have me for real, and I’d have told you that I didn’t care if you didn’t want my name because I could have yours, and that I would — be good to you.”

“You _are_,” she protests, but he shakes his head.

“Brienne, I’m _dead_. Or the next best thing. I don’t know if I can give you children if you even want any, I don’t know what else _this_ means, everyone knows what I am, I’m not — I’m not myself anymore, I can’t be —”

“Don’t,” she says, forcing him to turn, taking his face in between her hands again. “_Don’t_. You’re _yourself_ or you wouldn’t be here now, would you? You gave your word to fight for the living and you _did_, and let me tell you, it doesn’t feel strange. I mean, _some_ of it does, but what you are? Changes nothing. Nothing, you hear me? And I’d rather have you like _this_ than not at all. I’ve spent my entire life doing what I felt was right for me regardless of what anyone else told me, if the Faith tells me I can’t have you because you’re _dead_ then I’ll have you at a heart tree. I don’t care. _I don’t care_.”

He doesn’t — he doesn’t know what to answer, he doesn’t have the words, he _doesn’t_, and so he kisses her again like if she breathes into his mouth she’ll breathe some life into _him_, too, and he falls into that slumber with his head against her neck not long later and if it’s the next best thing he can have, well, he’ll take it.

—

“Lady Sansa,” Brienne tells her days later as the army readies to go to King’s Landing, “I would go with them, if you please.”

Sansa looks at her knowingly. “Is Ser Jaime coming, too?”

“He’s not fighting,” she says, “but he is.”

“Very well,” Sansa says, a small smile curling her lips. “Send Cersei Lannister my regards.”

“Gladly,” Brienne says, and then stalks out of the room.

—

“Your Grace,” Brienne tells Daenerys Targaryen soon after, “I have a favor to ask of you, if you would be so kind.”

The queen holds her stare. Very knowingly.

“I think I know what you would want to ask,” she says, “but do speak, Lady Brienne.”

“If you care not for taking Cersei Lannister’s life yourself, I would beg you to let me deal with her.”

“I care not,” the queen agrees, “but didn’t Ser Jaime ask the same?”

Brienne thinks of how his voice broke when she woke him up the previous night, when he said that he couldn’t think about his sister without his skin crawling, when he said he couldn’t believe she _would_ do that to him —

“He did,” Brienne says, “but I would like to spare him further suffering. Also, I have words for her.”

Brienne thinks she has never seen Daenerys Targaryen smile _this_ slyly at anyone. “I could lend you one of the dragons, if you wish.”

Brienne _has_ to smile back in her direction. “My thanks, Your Grace, but I think I would like to handle it myself.”

“Then if she’s not already dead by the time we get to her, she’s all yours.”

“Your Grace,” Brienne bows, and she’s not relishing having asked, but she can’t even _think_ about what Cersei has done, and how she _had_ him and thought he wasn’t enough for her _just the way he was_, the way she has wanted him for so long —

No.

No, she _will_ handle it herself.

She _will_.

—

_“Are you sure —”_

_“I asked her. She agreed. You’re to stay in my tent, you won’t have to go out of it, you don’t have to fight if you don’t want to.”_

_“Maybe I could make it easier for everyone, though —”_

_“Do you _want _to?”_

_“No. No, I don’t — I can’t kill anyone, I don’t — it’s what they made me like this for, I can’t do it, I —”_

_“Then you don’t. You_ don’t. _You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to as long as I draw breath, as far as I’m concerned.”_

_“I’m sorry, I should be better than this, I should do_ better —”

_“No. No, don’t, you don’t have to be better than — anything. I’m going out tomorrow, I’m making sure she regrets having even thought of causing you harm, then we’re going back to Tarth and that’s final.”_

_“Are you sure? Because I _could_ —”_

_“You could but you don’t want to. I don’t need to know anything else.”_

_“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you, but —”_

_“There’s nothing about _deserving_ here. Nothing. All right?”_

_“All right. All right, I —”_

_“Can I kiss you?”_

_“You don’t have to ask —”_

_“I — I really think I do.”_

—

They brought her cloak from Winterfell because he seems to always be cold.

She puts it on his shoulders before she rides out to the gates.

“I’ll come back before you know it,” she swears. “Just wait here. And if there’s anything you want to tell me before —”

“Do what you want,” he says. “I spent my life — I _gave_ my life for her. I don’t want anything to do with hers anymore.”

She kisses him again, slow, and then she turns her back on him and heads out.

She has a flank to command and a queen to take down.

—

Years from now, people will say that the once so-called Beauty of Tarth slew half of the Golden Company on her own after helping Theon Greyjoy make quick work of his uncle.

It will be an exaggeration, of course, but the smallfolk in King’s Landing _will_ remember her crashing through the melted down Iron Gate with half an army behind her, her blue armor covered in blood and an unsheathed Valyrian steel sword with a Lannister handle.

They will remember her stopping a Lannister commander and tell him to go back to the Red Keep and tell Cersei Lannister that _she_ was coming for her.

If the North _will_ remember how Jaime Lannister could slay hundreds of wights without needing to catch his breath during the Long Night, the South _will_ remember how she made her way towards the Keep and took out anyone in her way.

Queen Daenerys barely even needs to use her dragons, that day.

—

“Where is he?”

“Of course you would ask that,” Brienne says, a moment after Gregor Clegane’s corpse falls bodily beside her. Sandor told her she could have him, too, for all he cared.

Brienne was only too happy to strike his head off, and for what concerned Qyburn, she gave it to the Queen so she could feed him to her dragons. It seemed like a fitting death for him.

“He’s outside the walls. And he’s not coming.”

Cersei glares at her, and Brienne realizes that she hasn’t believed whatever her lieutenant told her.

Too bad, really.

“Something tells me you’re lying, _my lady_.”

Brienne shakes her head. “No. I am not. What is it, _Your Grace_, you cannot believe that we wouldn’t kill him on sight? That he would want to be as far from you as possible? Because we haven’t, and that’s exactly what he does want. Or did you miss the part where he escaped from here?”

Cersei’s eyes turn a colder shade of green. “He couldn’t have _escaped_. You must have killed him. He must have gone to kill your precious dragon queen, and —”

“No,” Brienne says, “he showed up, asked us to cut his right hand _again_ and he said he wanted you dead, but I decided that he deserved better than having to do it himself.”

A flash of doubt passes before her eyes. “Qyburn said —”

“Qyburn knew _nothing_. As do you,” she says. “How could you? _How_ could you do that to him?”

She shrugs. “He didn’t know what was good for him,” she says. “And what would _you_ care about that?”

She takes a step closer. “You told me that I loved him once. I said I didn’t.” She takes another one. “That time, I lied.”

“_You_ love him?” Cersei laughs. “Good luck with _that_. Even if what you say is true, he’s hardly a catch for anyone right now, isn’t he?”

“Not to me,” Brienne says, “_not to me_,” and then Cersei finally seems to understand that she’s not here to negotiate.

“You _wouldn’t_ —”

“I have sworn no oaths to you,” Brienne says. “Your family killed my former liege lady. You also hurt my _current_ liege lady, who sends her regards.”

“_Sansa Stark_?”

“She does. And her lady mother, too. That would have been enough, but — what you did to Jaime, that wasn’t — I can’t even call it despicable.”

“So many pretty words when the truth is that I just made sure he knew his place.”

“What, your own personal executioner?”

“We are one soul in two bodies,” Cersei says, so convinced of it that for a moment Brienne almost recoils, “and he seemed to have forgotten it.”

“No,” Brienne shakes her head, “he’s nothing like you. And that’s why I told him _I_ would do this instead of forcing him to deal with you again.”

And _then_ Cersei’s eyes widen in fear when Brienne’s hand closes around her throat.

“_What are you doing_ —” She wheezes.

“Your Grace,” Brienne says, and maybe she should be more conflicted about this, but the utter lack of _any_ regret in Cersei’s eyes seals it. She has no idea. She doesn’t _care_. And she thought it wasn’t wrong to take from Jaime everything that makes him the man she bloody damn well _loves_ same as she most likely wouldn’t regret a single thing she’s done to hurt someone, and that’s a long list, isn’t it —

No.

No, she really isn’t conflicted _now_. “I just want you to know that he’s with _me_, he hasn’t tried to kill any of us once, he swore himself to me and I swore him he’d always have a place at my hearth and that I would never ask anything dishonorable of him. We’re going back to Tarth after this and I will have him dead, alive or whatever he is right now. He’s the best person I have known. And he deserved far, far better than _you_.” She tightens her hold around Cersei’s pale, pale throat, remembers that time Lady Catelyn told her she had dreamed of doing this herself, and she thinks for a moment, _my lady, this is for you, too_. “Jaime Lannister sends his regards, _Your Grace_,” she says, and then she presses _harder_.

Cersei does try to say something, but Brienne doesn’t even want to hear it. She brings her second hand to Cersei’s neck.

She feels absolutely nothing other than pity when she stops struggling and crumples to the ground.

A moment later, the door to the throne room slams open and Daenerys walks in, Jon Snow and more soldiers behind her.

“Your Grace,” Brienne says, nodding towards the throne. “If your dragons want her, they can have their fill.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t consider an appointment to the Kingsguard, my lady?” Daenerys asks, looking impressed.

“Thank you,” Brienne says, “but I have different plans. And I would never ask Ser Jaime to serve in a Kingsguard again, with me or otherwise.”

She nods in understanding.

Brienne sheaths back Oathkeeper and barely turns her head when Daenerys tells her commander to bring the corpse in the open so everyone can see Drogon and Rhaegar feasting on it.

She supposes she should feel at least somewhat guilty.

She thinks of how _dead_ Jaime’s eyes looked when he told her of what she asked of him in those few days, and her conscience stays silent.

—

“It’s done,” Brienne tells him as she walks back inside her tent, later.

He looks up at her with eyes that don’t look _dead_ even if his face is still pale and he doesn’t breathe unless he remembers to pretend too.

“Is — is she —”

“Yes,” Brienne says. “Daenerys gave her to the dragons. After.”

Jaime nods, looking down at his left hand — he barely glances at the right, lately. He’s not even wearing anything on it — he says he doesn’t feel pain and he doesn’t really need it anyway.

Still —

She reaches down, reaching for his wrist, bringing it up — this time it’s a way cleaner cut. No infections, of course. No visible bone when it was healing. It’s raw, but it also feels like it has already scarred. She brushes her lips against the edge of the stump, and he closes his eyes, whispering that he doesn’t deserve her, he _doesn’t_, and so she kisses him again to stop that nonsense.

“You do,” she says, “you _do_,” and gods but the moment they’re in Tarth she _will_ make sure he has time to put himself back together without anyone or anything else meddling with it.

—

“Is it doable?” Brienne asks Tyrion a few days later. They’re staying in the camp until things are settled in the city and then they’re going. It’s better like this. But she also wants to make sure he and Jaime have some time together before they do leave.

“Everything is _doable_, if you have enough coin and will,” Tyrion says, “and finding a septon that will write down that you and my brother married _before_ his unfortunate accident won’t be too hard. One that will say _he_ took your cloak might be a problem, but —”

“Who would even care? The entire realm knows by now. And where we’re going, well, it’s not going to be a problem. I just need something to make it official in case anything happens.”

He nods. “That’s reasonable. Very well, I shall find a septon and make sure a record is prepared. I assume you _will_ invite me to the real one, when it happens?”

“Of course,” she says, “that goes without saying.”

“You know,” he says, “I used to dream of killing her, too. With a dragon.”

“… With a dragon?”

“Indeed. I used to dream I had one and that I would use it to burn both her and my father to a crisp. But in retrospect, I’m glad it wasn’t either him or me, even if I’m not so sure I would have wished it on _you_.”

“Don’t concern yourself. I — I had to see him lose that hand once,” she admits, “and I wish I could have taken all of them with my bare hands on principle, back then. I didn’t think I would have to see it twice. _That_ would have been enough, but — she didn’t regret it for one second.”

“… I can’t say I’m surprised. Not at all?”

“No. She — she said it was necessary to _make sure he knew his place_. Which according to her would have been… doing whatever she wanted without complaining, I suppose, in the best of cases.”

Tyrion visibly shudders.

“After that — what was I even going to think? That she would ever feel sorry? She hurt him enough and I couldn’t stand it, on top of — everyone else she hurt. It’s not going to haunt my sleep.”

“Same as my lord father, I suppose,” he agrees. They share a look, she nods at him, then leaves the room and goes to the raven cages.

She needs to tell her father a few things.

—

“He’s done it,” she tells Jaime a few days later. He’s resting with his head on her legs, not going much of anything, but he did tell her that it makes him feel rested, so who is she to tell him not to?

“Who, my brother?”

“Yes,” she says, her fingers running through his hair. It _did_ grow, regardless of how dead he’s supposed to be. His beard too, just slightly, slower than it would have before. “We have a record saying we married before you sent me off to find Sansa and that _you_ took my cloak and that it was kept hidden for… obvious reasons. My father says he has no objections, not that I would care if he had any. Pod is coming with us, we are leaving in a few days.”

He nods, his left hand squeezing her knee. “But — we _could_ have a real wedding, couldn’t we?”

“Of course,” she says. “No septons, but I don’t think we need any.”

“No,” he agrees. “No, we wouldn’t.”

He sounds like he’s happy at the thought. Good.

“I — I _did_ want to do it properly,” he says into her thigh. “I’m sorry she —”

“We _will_ do it properly,” Brienne says, and he stops apologizing.

—

People on Tarth had despaired to ever see Lady Brienne wed.

But a few moons later, there _is_ a small ceremony out in the open, in front of the only heart tree of the entire island.

It’s the sort of wedding most of them had expected their future lady to have, knowing her. She’s the one waiting at the altar, and for the first time in years she’s wearing a proper dress, but she wears it proudly, and it’s tailor-made for her, and she holds herself up straight as the Hand of the Queen walks across the small path to the three with his brother at his side.

Ser Jaime Lannister is dressed in a fine blue pair of trousers and silk tunic, the exact same blue as her cloak. The sleeves cover his right wrist completely, and the bright Lannister red and gold cloak matches his golden hair. Sure, his skin is very pale, and his eyes are strangely bright, but he looks _happy_ as he reaches the altar and so no one cares for the rest.

The lady makes quick work of unclasping his cloak and lets it fall on the ground, draping her blue one around his shoulders before she grasps his left hand. They both _mean _it when they pledge to each other.

They kiss for a long, long time. Only a few people notice that the bride was the only one who took a breath, after moving apart.

—

There is no traditional bedding, of course, but Jaime hadn’t even asked Brienne, figuring she would loathe it as much as he would.

They go up to her room hand in hand, and when she closes the door, he has to force himself to look at her. “If you don’t want to —”

“_I_ was going to say that,” Brienne says, half-smiling.

“… You were?”

“_I_ never laid with anyone,” she says. “On the contrary, the last time _you_ did wasn’t on your terms. I don’t want you to feel like you _have_ to.”

He doesn’t quite look at her. “I suppose you waited enough —”

“Jaime, you could _never_ want to bed me, I wouldn’t ask it of you.”

He feels like crying. Maybe a few tears did escape his eyes.

“I — I _did_ dream of it,” he whispers. “Bedding you. But now — I am — I don’t even _know_ —”

“Do you _want_ it?” She asks, and he’s almost grateful for how straight to the point she went.

“What if I do?” He replies, his own voice barely audible, hating it, _hating it_, and this wasn’t how he had imagined it happen —

“Then we should,” she says, smiling, coming closer, “don’t you think that I haven’t dreamed of that, too? It’s all right. It _is_.”

He nods, not quite knowing what to say —

“Can I take that shirt off?” She asks, and he says yes, and a moment later she’s gently divesting him and running her hands over his scarred pale chest where his heart is barely beating, and then —

“What do you want?” She whispers, right against his mouth, and —

“I — I don’t know what — I might not want,” he admits. “Can we just — see where it goes?”

“That’s fine,” she says, and then kisses him again.

—

Turns out, he’s dreamed of her above him so many times, he doesn’t think of Cersei doing the same once. But he immediately goes still in a way that’s _not_ good when she says _touch me_ the moment she realizes he’s keeping his hands to himself, and so she moves to the side and holds him close until he shudders and says he wants this too much to stop here but she shouldn’t say outright what he should do, and so she nods and kisses him again and _asks_ him to touch her then and it’s easy to do that if she does, and she moans so sweetly when his left hand touches her cunt and brings her off, for a moment he even forgets that _his_ blood isn’t rushing so hot underneath his skin anymore, and then she asks, _can I_, her hand on his waist, and he feels _that_ cold coming up his spine and he shakes his head before he can ruin it for them again, and he says _not that_ and for a moment he’s terrified she’ll back off but Brienne just says it’s all right and she’s not going to and does he want to switch, and he shakes his head because that’s how _she_ always wanted him even before, _can we just kiss some more_, he asks, and Brienne’s mouth is on his own again —

— and he doesn’t know how long they kiss, but at some point he feels as warm as he’s ever going to be and Brienne hasn’t hesitated for a second nor has she even blinked at the prospect that she’s losing her maidenhead to someone who should be dead by all means, and when he grasps at her shoulders before moving his hand down to her breast she moans inside his mouth and she asks him if there’s anything else he wants to do and gods but he wants to be inside her but he doesn’t want it to be _the same_ and so he tells her and he moves his hand down because it’s better like that and she waits until he’s lined up with her —

_Should I_, she asks, and _please_, he answers, and then she’s lowering herself downdown_down_ but she’s also moved an arm around him so that his forehead touches the middle of her chest, lightly, and she’s kissing his hair as she rolls her hips downward, and it’s not — it’s nothing like the last time and he’s _not_ going to think about that, not when Brienne is warm against him and her skin is softer than one might assume and she’s trembling in all the good ways and her hands are still being impossibly gentle as they grasp his shoulders, and he _could _hold himself up but he doesn’t want to, he wants this to be as close as how it could have been if he had been still _himself_, and Brienne says that he needs to stop thinking _that_ because there’s nothing she’s seen up to now that tells her he’s not himself, and oh did he speak out loud, he _did_ —

_So what_, Brienne says, sounding like she’s _this_ close, _you can say whatever you want_, and his eyes are burning in all the good ways as he thrusts upwards and she meets that thrust and clenches around him hard enough that _finally_ he feels his muscles spasm in pleasure, and oh, so he can still do that, it can still feel like _this_ for him, too, and when he spills inside her it’s — it would have knocked his breath away if he had needed to breathe still, and thing is, he can barely remember how it was _before_, and _after_, well, it’s the first time it happens, and it’s good, so _good_, and —

_Kiss me, please, now_, he manages to say, and Brienne’s mouth is on his just as she peaks, too, and she’s saying it feels great and that _he_ feels great in between kisses and she’s not letting him go —

_I love you_, he tells her, knowing it to be true like he’s never known anything else in his life, and when she smiles and tells him the same he thinks his heart might have beaten when it was not supposed to.

—

It’s said that the Lady of Tarth goes nowhere without her sworn sword.

Some people say that at some point after their marriage he might have knighted her, but that’s never confirmed nor denied.

Others are suspicious that the aforementioned sworn sword never seems to actually threaten or kill anyone, but whenever there’s need to build anything on the island or to lift heavy weights or teach young men and women how to fight, he’s always available.

Most have noticed that in the beginning he never spoke, and after a few years he would.

Most of the people he teaches swear on their soul he’s actually amusing, when he gets to _talk_.

Others say they hear screams in the night, once in a while.

What everyone can say for sure is that he only wears blue, and some maids have noticed that if there are screams in the night, the next day he always wears his wedding cloak.

—

Jaime only ever sees his sister once, after she dies.

“Look at you,” she scoffs. It’s the dawn of a new spring day, the sapphire waters of Tarth covered in pink and violet as the sun rises on the horizon. “You let her kill me and that’s all you have to show for it? A blue and pink cloak?”

Jaime shakes his head and doesn’t even look at her. He stands up, wetting his bare feet in the warm water in front of him. The sand is soft underneath, he thinks, and maybe the sun isn’t warming him up for good, but it’s enough.

“Oh, so now you’re ignoring me? Convenient. You can’t face what your cow has done, huh?”

“Or maybe he’s just done with you,” Loras Tyrell says from somewhere on Jaime’s left. He smiles a tiny bit.

“He can’t be _done_ with me,” Cersei protests.

“I think he really _is_,” Ned Stark says, and Jaime wants to thank him, but he thinks he’s better off not even glancing at his left. He’s done with ghosts, for good.

“Jaime, _look at me_.” Cersei’s voice raises. He laughs.

Maybe he can afford to do this, just once.

“It never worked in the first place,” he tells her, taking a good look at her. She’s wearing black. Her throat is dark red. He doesn’t really care. “The moment I woke up, I only ever wanted to leave. You can order whatever you want, I’m not bound to your word. Same as I should have never been bound to you.”

He turns his back on all of them as Cersei shouts _come back_, but he barely even hears it.

A moment later, he sees Brienne coming his way down to the beach. She probably found the bed empty and she knows he likes to come here, if he can’t bring himself to rest. She smiles at seeing her cloak on his shoulders.

“Is something wrong?” She asks, her arms going around his waist just as he holds her back, breathing in and out, and if it’s to fool himself that he needs it, well, he’s gotten really good at pretending to do it without thinking.

“No,” he says, “no, I just needed some air.”

“Weren’t you talking to someone?”

“Oh. No. It was nothing. Nothing at all,” he says.

He smiles to himself as he realizes he completely means it.

End.


End file.
